Subject: Re: [devuan-dev] bug#663: man-db: "man open" gives the manpage of "xdg-open"

From: "David (Plasma) Paul" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2022 01:05:32 -0600

Control: tags -1 wontfix

On Wed, 16 Feb 2022 09:42:40 +0100
"Dr. Nikolaus Klepp" <[email-masked]> wrote:
>    * What led up to the situation?
> $ man open
> 
>    * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
>      ineffective)?
> $ man open
> 
>    * What was the outcome of this action?
> The manpage of xdg-open, /usr/share/man/man1/xdg-open.1.gz, from
> package "xdg-op
> 
>    * What outcome did you expect instead?
> The manpage of "open", /usr/share/man/man2/open.2.gz, from package
> "manpages-dev

The command is working as intended.

When manpages in multiple sections of the manual share the same name,
the page from the earliest section of the manual is fetched and
displayed in response to running 'man <manpage>'.

The xdg-utils package includes an alias for /usr/bin/xdg-open in the
form of /usr/bin/open. A manpage alias is included in the same fashion,
thus both sections 1 and 2 of the manual have a manpage for 'open'.

To specify from which section of the manual to display a manpage,
proceed the name of the manpage with the section number,
i.e.'man 2 open'. To display matching manpages from all sections, use
the -a option, i.e. 'man -a open'.

-- 
Plasma